Google Workspace Updates: 2021

Sign in to RSVP via hyperlinks in Google Calendar email invitations

Thursday, March 4, 2021

Quick launch summaryIn order to prevent unauthorized users from responding on your behalf to Google Calendar event invitations, you’ll now be required to be logged in to use any of the RSVP hyperlinks in invite emails. Previously, organizers or anyone with a specific invitee's invitation copy could respond on behalf of that invitee.

Responding to invitations via email will now require you to be signed in

If a user is not logged in, they will be asked to sign in to their Google Account. Note that this only applies to users with a Google account.
Getting started

Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
End users: There is no end user setting for this feature. Visit the Help Center to learn more about responding to event invitations.

Rollout pace

Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on March 4, 2021

Availability

Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, and Education Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, and Nonprofits customers

Resources

Google Help: Respond to event invitations

Add files owned by suspended accounts to shared drives

Thursday, March 4, 2021

Quick launch summary Shared drives can be used to store, search, and access files with a team. Admins can choose whether to let file editors in their organization move content from My Drive to shared drives, as long as the file owner is a member of the shared drive.
However, until now it was often not possible to move files originally created by users whose accounts are suspended, as suspended accounts can’t be added as members of a shared drive. Admins can suspend an account to temporarily block a user's access to your organization's Google services (for example, you may suspend the account of a former employee).
With this launch, file editors can now add these files to shared drives. As long as admins choose to allow users to migrate files to shared drives, content created by a user whose account is suspended by their organization’s administrator will be eligible to be added to a shared drive.

Getting started

Admins: This feature is controlled by the more general setting at Admin console > Apps > Google Workspace > Drive and Docs > Migration settings > Allow users to migrate files to shared drives. If this is turned on already, the feature will automatically become available to users when it rolls out. Use our Help Center to learn more about moving content to a shared drive.
End users: There is no end user setting for this feature.

Rollout pace

Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility) starting on March 4, 2021

Availability

Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, and Education Plus, as well as G Suite Business and Nonprofits customers
Not available to Google Workspace Business Starter and G Suite Basic customers.

Resources

Google Workspace Admin Help: Move content to a shared drive

New Google Vault interface will become the only experience starting on May 24, 2021

Tuesday, March 2, 2021

Quick launch summary Last year, we announced a new interface for Google Vault. The new interface makes it easier to navigate Vault and includes new productivity features for faster task completion. See our beta blog post for more information on the improvements in the new interface.

While the new interface is the primary interface at vault.google.com, it is still possible to access the classic interface at ediscovery.google.com. Starting on May 24, 2021, the classic interface will redirect to the new interface, with no option to revert back. The new interface includes all the core functionality from the classic interface, and there will be no impact on your existing Google Vault setup.

Getting started

Admins: The new interface is available at vault.google.com. Visit the Help Center to learn more about managing Google Vault for your organization.
End users: No end user impact.

Rollout pace

Rapid and Scheduled Release domains: Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility) starting on May 24, 2021

Availability

Available to Google Workspace Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, and Education Plus, as well as G Suite Business customers and customers with the Vault add-on license
Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, and Business Standard customers, or G Suite Basic customers

Resources

Enhanced admin controls for Gmail IMAP

Tuesday, March 2, 2021

Quick launch summaryYou can now enable Gmail IMAP and Gmail POP separately and enable access via IMAP on a per-app basis in the Admin console.

In addition to granularly allowing mail clients to sync via IMAP and/or POP, there’s also a new option to specify a list of OAuth IDs, which are the approved IMAP clients that your users are allowed to use. For example, you may choose to allow your users to use the default mail app on mobile devices and desktop computers. By default, all IMAP clients will be allowed unless this feature is explicitly enabled. Note that IMAP clients can only be restricted if they support OAuth.
Getting started

Admins: This feature will be OFF by default and can be enabled at the domain or organizational unit (OU) level. Visit the Help Center to learn more about turning IMAP options on or off for your organization.
End users: There is no end user setting for this feature. End users will only be able to use the allowlisted IMAP clients approved by admin.

Rollout pace

Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on March 2, 2021

Availability

Available to Google Workspace Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, Nonprofits, Education, and Enterprise for Education customers
Not available to Google Workspace Essentials customers

Resources

Google Workspace Admin Help: Turn POP and IMAP on and off for users

Join Google Meet calls from third-party video conferencing systems more easily

Monday, March 1, 2021

What’s changingWe’re making it easier to join Google Meet calls from third-party video conferencing systems. Specifically,

If you’re using third-party video conferencing hardware with a third-party calendar service, you can now enable your users to join Meet video calls with just one click from the device.
If you’re using third-party video conferencing hardware with Google Calendar, you can now choose to have SIP meeting codes automatically added to new Calendar events.

Who’s impactedAdmins and end usersWhy it’s importantMeet supports SIP URI—a common way to let video conferencing systems know how to join calls—but to date, many customers have found it difficult to use. With this launch, we’re giving admins the option to automatically add SIP join information to new third-party calendar events—thus making it easier for third-party hardware solutions to find and join Meet calls. If the hardware you use doesn’t have a calendar integration, we’ll automatically add SIP join information to new Calendar events. This should make it easier for users to join Meet calls on third-party video conferencing hardware.
Getting started

Admins: These features will be off by default. To take advantage of them, you need to download and install Pexip Infinity gateway and turn on Meet interoperability in the Admin console. You must then choose to use long meeting IDs. Visit the Help Center for instructions on how to use Meet with third-party video conferencing systems.
End users: There is no end user setting for these features. They will only work for users with interop enabled.

Rollout pace

This feature is available now for all domains.

Availability

Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, and Education Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, and Nonprofits customers. A gateway license from Pexip or a Pexip partner is required for Meet interoperability.

Resources

New Assured Controls help support your information governance goals

Monday, March 1, 2021

What’s changing Today we’re introducing Assured Controls for Google Workspace Enterprise Plus, an add-on that helps customers control cloud service provider access and attain their information governance goals.

As part of the Assured Controls feature set, we’ll first roll out Access Management. Access Management enables customers to geographically limit Google staff support actions to U.S. Persons within our Support teams. At launch, Access Management will be limited to accesses that are covered by Access Transparency in Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Drive, Google Sheets, and Google Slides, and will only be supported in the U.S. region. To learn more, contact Google Support or your account representative.

Note that we do not access customer data for any reason other than those necessary to provide support services and fulfill our contractual and legal obligations. When Support access is warranted, Access Management helps customers geographically limit that access.

For more information on this and other Google Workspace Security launches, see our Cloud Blog post and register for our upcoming Google Cloud Security Talk.

Who’s impacted Admins only

Why you’d use it Some customers in regulated industries, particularly the public sector, have specific requirements related to cloud service provider access to data in the course of customer support interactions. Access Management provides customers with the ability to geographically limit those Google staff support actions.
As Assured Controls is available on Google Workspace’s native platform, you don’t need to move to a separate environment for access to these restriction capabilities. This can help reduce costs and complexity, while allowing your organization to benefit from the full set of advanced features that Google Workspace offers.

Getting started

Admins: Once you’ve purchased the Assured Controls add-on, you can assign licenses and manage the feature at Admin Console > Access Management. Users assigned the policy will have any data owned by them restricted to designated U.S. Persons within our support teams. Access Management is surfaced for logging in the Access Transparency logs. To learn more contact Google Support or your account representative
End users: No end user impact.

Rollout pace

Contact your Google account representative to learn more about availability and timing.

Availability

Google Workspace Assured Controls is available as an add-on to Google Workspace Enterprise Plus customers only. For more information, contact your Google account representative.
Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Education Fundamentals, and Education Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, and Nonprofits customers

Resources

Cloud Blog post: Announcing Assured Controls and expanded Data Regions coverage for Google Workspace
Google Cloud Security Talks: The future of work and expanding data governance for Google Workspace

Expanding data regions coverage to Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides user indices

Monday, March 1, 2021

What’s changing Data regions for Google Workspace allows customers to choose a specific geographic location—in the U.S., in Europe, or globally distributed—for their covered data at rest to help meet organizational or compliance needs. We’re now extending data regions coverage to user indices for Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides for the U.S. data region.
For more information on this and other Google Workspace Security launches, see our Cloud Blog post and register for our upcoming Google Cloud Security Talk.

Who’s impacted Admins

Why you’d use it Google Workspace’s globally distributed cloud infrastructure reduces latency and protects data with geo redundancy, so most organizations choose not to geo-restrict their data. If, however, your organization has preferences as to where its data is stored at rest, data regions can help you achieve your compliance goals.

Since launching data region controls in 2018, we’ve continued to make improvements, including the addition of new covered apps and data types in 2019 and expanded coverage and group-based admin controls in 2020. By expanding data regions coverage to Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides user indices, we hope to better support our customers’ data location preferences and give them great control.

Getting started

Admins: Data location is OFF by default and can be enabled at the group or OU level. However, when this launch is rolled out to your domain, Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides user indices will automatically be migrated to comply with existing U.S. data location policies you’ve set up. Visit the Help Center to learn more about how to choose a geographic location for your data.
End users: No end user impact.

Rollout pace

Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on March 1, 2021

Availability

Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Plus and Education Plus customers
Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, or Education Fundamentals, or G Suite Basic, Business, or Nonprofits customers

Resources

Access to Google Workspace core services from Google Assistant

Monday, March 1, 2021

What’s changingOver the next few weeks, we’ll begin making access to Google Workspace services from Google Assistant generally available to any customers with the “Search and Assistant” additional service enabled. This was previously available in beta.

Who’s impactedAdmins and end usersWhy you’d use itThis will allow your users to more seamlessly get things done using just their voice—from asking what’s on their Calendar to joining meetings and sending emails on the go. Google Assistant will respond to voice commands for certain Google Calendar and Gmail functions and:

Let you know when your next meeting is
Create, cancel or reschedule a Calendar event
Send a note to event attendees via email
Dial into a meeting
Email a contact

Additional detailsAt launch, this service will initially only be available in English on personal mobile devices. Support for access on Nest smart speakers and smart displays is still in beta (you can sign up to participate).
Getting started

Admins: This feature will be OFF by default and can be enabled at the domain, OU, or group level. Visit the Help Center to learn more about turning Search and Assistant services on or off for your organization.
End users: Visit the Help Center to learn more about setting up Google Assistant for your device.

Rollout paceAdmin controls

Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on March 1, 2021

Availability

Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, and Education Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, and Nonprofits

Resources

Adding Google Chat, Google Calendar, and Jamboard to Google Workspace Essentials

Monday, March 1, 2021

Quick launch summaryWe’re giving teams and organizations more ways to connect and collaborate by adding Google Chat, Google Calendar, and Jamboard to Google Workspace Essentials, all included at no additional cost.
We know that different types of workers have different needs for communication and collaboration. We hope that, with the addition of these apps, Google Workspace Essentials customers will take advantage of new ways to communicate and collaborate by:

Using Chat to stay connected with your team and other stakeholders in your organization
Using Jamboard and Google Meet to conduct more immersive and engaging meetings
Using Calendar to schedule calls and team meetings

We’re also adding the ability for multiple teams within one domain to sign up for Google Workspace Essentials, even if other teams in their domain have previously signed up in the past.
Visit http://workspace.google.com/essentials to learn more about Google Workspace Essentials.
Getting started

Rollout paceThese features are available now.Availability

These changes apply to Google Workspace Essentials customers only.
These changes are not relevant to Google Workspace Enterprise Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, or Enterprise Plus, or G Suite Basic, Business, Education, Enterprise for Education, or Nonprofits customers.

Resources

Google Workspace Updates Weekly Recap - February 26, 2021

Friday, February 26, 2021

New updatesThere are no new updates to share this week. Please see below for a recap of published announcements.
Previous announcements
The announcements below were published on the Workspace Updates blog earlier this week. Please refer to the original blog posts for complete details.
Improvements for locating new comments and important conversations in Google DocsWe’ve added two new ways that make it easier to find comments that require your attention and action in Google Docs on the web. New comment activity since the last time you viewed a document will be “badged” with a blue dot. Additionally, when you hover over the blue dot, you’ll see a “New” banner. | Learn more.

More options for sharing your availability in Google CalendarWe’re adding two new options in Calendar, which will help you better communicate your work availability to your colleagues. Specifically, you can create repeating out of office entries and split your working hours into multiple segments each day. | Learn more.

End a Google Meet video call for everyone at onceWhen a Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals or Education Plus host leaves their meeting, they can now choose to keep others on the call or to end the call instead, ejecting everyone else. | Available to Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals and Education Plus customers only. | Learn more.

Easily locate the source file for embedded Drive video and audio files in Google SlidesIt’s now easier to find the original source file for Google Drive-stored video or audio files embedded in a Google Slides presentation. | Learn more.

Reminder: Ending support for IE11 for all Google Workspace apps on March 15Last year, we announced that Google Workspace will officially stop supporting Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) on March 15, 2021. To avoid any possible disruptions in service, such as degraded performance or security vulnerabilities, please be sure to switch to a different browser before that date. | Learn more.

Let Google Calendar automatically book a replacement room for your eventsIf a room declines your event, Google Calendar can now find a similar room to replace it, automatically. | Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, and Education Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, and Nonprofits customers only. | Learn more.

Admin control for AppSheet now fully availableIn December 2020, we announced the availability of an admin control for AppSheet in the Additional services section of the Admin console. This rollout of this control is now complete. | Learn more.
For a recap of announcements in the past six months, check out What’s new in Google Workspace (recent releases).

Let Google Calendar automatically book a replacement room for your events

Thursday, February 25, 2021

What’s changingIf a room declines your event, Google Calendar can now find a similar room to replace it, automatically.
Who’s impactedAdmins and end users
Why you’d use itIn the past, when a room declined a Calendar meeting, your users may not have noticed until the last minute, leaving them and their guests without a room. This was especially common with recurring meetings, where a room may have declined on some dates but not others.
When this new feature is enabled, your users will save time and effort as Calendar automatically tries to find and book a replacement room that is a similar size, is in the same building, and has the same equipment.

Additional details The organizer and guests of the event will receive an email informing them of the newly booked room. Visit the Help Center for more information.

Getting started

Rollout paceAdmin setting

Rapid and Scheduled Release domains: Full rollout (up to 3 days for feature visibility) starting on February 25, 2021

Feature rollout

Rapid and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on March 11, 2021

Availability

Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, and Education Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, and Nonprofits customers
Not available to Google Workspace Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, as well as G Suite Basic customers

Resources

Google Workspace Admin Help: Autoreplace declined meeting rooms
Google Help: Add a room to an event

Reminder: Ending support for IE11 for all Google Workspace apps on March 15

Thursday, February 25, 2021

we announced
Getting started

Admins: We recommend you encourage IE11 users in your organization to switch to a supported browser as soon as possible.
End users: To prepare for this change, we recommend using a supported browser with Google Workspace.

Availability

Impacts Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, Education, Enterprise for Education, and Nonprofits customers

Resources

Google Help: Supported browsers for Google Workspace

Easily locate the source file for embedded Drive video and audio files in Google Slides

Thursday, February 25, 2021

Quick launch summary insertshare
Getting started

Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
End users: When editing a Google Slides presentation, click on an embedded Drive-stored video or audio or file and then click on the ‘link to Drive’ button to open the original Google Drive file.

Visit the Help Center to learn more about inserting or deleting images and videos in Slides.

Rollout pace

Rapid Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on February 24, 2021
Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days) for feature visibility starting on March 2, 2021

Availability

Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, and Education Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, and Nonprofits customers

Resources

Docs Editors Help: Insert or delete images and videos
Google Workspace Updates Blog: Access checker for Slides ensures inserted video and audio is playable
Google Workspace Updates Blog: Access checker for Slides now checks permissions when you share with new users

End a Google Meet video call for everyone at once

Monday, February 22, 2021

What’s changingWhen a Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals or Education Plus host leaves their meeting, they can now choose to keep others on the call or to end the call instead, ejecting everyone else.

We’ll launch this feature to additional Google Workspace editions in the coming months.
Who’s impactedEnd usersWhy you’d use itIn some cases, a host may not want people to continue a meeting without them present. For example, teachers may want to prevent students from having unsupervised meetings.
Additional detailsWhen a host is done with a meeting and wants to leave, they now have two options:

Leave meeting: The host will leave the meeting, but the meeting will continue.
End meeting for all: Everyone, including people in breakout rooms, will be ejected from the meeting. Participants will be informed that the host has ended the meeting. Once the meeting has been ended, people will not be able to rejoin, unless the host rejoins first.

We recommend that, after ending a meeting, if a host wants to meet with a new group of people, that they create a new meeting. This can help prevent previous participants from joining.
Getting started

Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
End users: There is no end user setting for this feature. Visit the Help Center to learn more about ending a video call in Meet.

Rollout pace

Availability

Available to Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals and Education Plus customers
Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, and Nonprofits customers

Resources

Google Help: Add or remove people from a Google Meet video call

More options for sharing your availability in Google Calendar

Monday, February 22, 2021

What’s changing We’re adding two new options in Calendar, which will help you better communicate your work availability to your colleagues. Specifically, you can:

Create repeating out of office entries.
Split your working hours into multiple segments each day.

At the moment, working hour segments will only be available on the web and repeating out of office entries on the web and Android devices. See below for more information on these features, including rollout details.

Who's impactedEnd users

Why it’s important As many people have experienced changes to their working environments in the past year, their work schedules have also changed—and are now often mixed with personal commitments and other obligations. We hope that with the addition of repeating out of office entries and segmentable working hours, you can better organize your time and communicate availability to your colleagues.
You can use segmentable working hours to indicate when certain blocks of time are outside of your working hours. Working hours are visible on your calendar when someone schedules a meeting with you.
In addition to using repeating out of office entries for vacation time, you can use them to indicate time when you need to handle personal commitments—like childcare, exercise, and more. They can also be used to better communicate part-time availability or certain days when you're consistently unavailable.

Additional details Repeating out of office entries and declining meeting behavior If you create a repeating out of office entry and select “Automatically decline meetings,” a decline meeting notification will be sent to the organizers of any meetings scheduled during your repeating out of office entry. If the declined meeting is a recurring meeting, those organizers may get multiple notifications—these emails are bundled for Gmail users, but not always for users of other email services.

Getting started

Segment your working hours in Google Calendar

Creating repeating out of office entries in Google Calendar

Rollout pace Working hour segments

Rapid Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on February 22, 2021
Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on March 8, 2021

Repeating out of office entries

Rapid Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on March 1, 2021
Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on March 15, 2021

Availability

Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, and Education Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, and Nonprofits customers

Resources

Google Help: Set your working hours & availability

Improvements for locating new comments and important conversations in Google Docs

Monday, February 22, 2021

Quick launch summary

A blue dot emphasizes the new comment activity since the last time you viewed the document.

In the Comments history dialog, we added new filtering options. You can sort comments by: “For you”, “All comments”, or “Resolved”.

Select “For You” in the comment history dialog to view the comment threads and action items involving you.

We hope these improvements make collaboration easier by enabling you to quickly navigate to and take action on important comments and conversations.

Getting started

Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
End users: There is no end user setting for this feature. Visit the Help Center to learn more about using comments and action items.

Rollout pace

Availability

Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, Education, Enterprise for Education, and Nonprofits customers
Available to users with personal Google Accounts

Resources

Google Help: Use comments & action items

Google Workspace Updates Weekly Recap - February 19, 2021

Friday, February 19, 2021

New updatesThere are no new updates to share this week. Please see below for a recap of published announcements.
Previous announcementsThe announcements below were published on the Workspace Updates blog earlier this week. Please refer to the original blog posts for complete details.

Limit Google Drive sharing to specific groups with target audiences, now generally availableAdmins can now define specific audiences with whom their users can link-share Google Drive files. | Learn more.

Mute all Google Meet participants at onceMeeting hosts in Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals and Education Plus domains can now mute everyone all at once in Google Meet. | Available to Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals and Education Plus customers only. | Learn more.

Introducing Google Workspace for EducationWe’re excited to announce that G Suite for Education is now Google Workspace for Education. | Learn more.

Automatic group membership management with dynamic groups, now generally availableDynamic groups are now generally available. Dynamic groups work the same as other Google Groups, but with the added benefit that their memberships are automatically kept up to date with a membership query. | Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, and Education Plus, and Cloud Identity Premium customers only. | Learn more.

More notifications added to the alert center in Google WorkspaceWe’re adding new alerts to the alert center. Specifically, you can now see alerts for reporting rules and 11 other new alerts related to changes to app settings and user accounts. | Learn more.

New Calendar admin privilege hierarchy in the Admin consoleYou can now grant admin privileges for Calendar-related settings and resource management separately. | Learn more.

Changes to information visibility in Meet quality tool, Meet audit log, and Reports APIWe’re updating how information is displayed in the Meet quality tool, Meet audit log, and Reports API. This makes it easier for admins to follow up on calls hosted within their domains, as all three tools will use the same identifiers for external participants. | Learn more.

New option to download third-party apps and domain-wide delegation to CSVWith this launch, we’re adding new options to download third-party API apps and domain-wide delegated apps to a CSV file. | Learn more.

For a recap of announcements in the past six months, check out What’s new in Google Workspace (recent releases).

New option to download third-party apps and domain wide delegation to CSV

Thursday, February 18, 2021

Quick launch summary Google Workspace customers can set up and manage apps for app access control and domain-wide delegation through the Admin console at Admin console > Security > API Controls. However, for some customers the lists of apps in these sections can be long, which can make it difficult to see and manage the information in the Admin console.

With this launch, we’re adding new options to download 3rd party API apps and domain wide delegated apps to a CSV file. This file will contain all the information which is displayed in the Admin console list. Having the information in CSV format may make it easier to understand and analyze how these apps and features are accessed in your organization.

Getting started

Rollout pace

Rapid and Scheduled Release domains: Full rollout (1-3 days for feature visibility) starting on February 18, 2021.

Availability

Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, Education, Enterprise for Education, and Nonprofits customers

Resources

Changes to information visibility in Meet quality tool, Meet audit log, and Reports API

Thursday, February 18, 2021

Quick launch summaryWe’re updating how information is displayed in the Meet quality tool, Meet audit log, and Reports API. This makes it easier for admins to follow up on calls hosted within their domains, as all three tools will use the same identifiers for external participants.
For in-domain users, admins will get access to richer information, including a user's country and IP address, and the email address of the meeting organizer. This will allow them to perform certain tasks, like troubleshooting a user connection or following up an abuse report.
For calls hosted in external domains, we’ve improved how these tools obscure or entirely hide participant information, creating consistency and better protecting external participant information.
Getting started

Admins: These changes will be available by default for all new meetings. Visit the Help Center to learn more about using the Meet quality tool, Meet audit log, and Reports API. to troubleshoot and analyze meeting data.
End users: No impact

Rollout pace

Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on February 18, 2021

Availability

Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals and Education Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, and Nonprofits customers

Resources

New Calendar admin privilege hierarchy in the Admin console

Thursday, February 18, 2021

What’s changingYou can now grant admin privileges for Calendar-related settings and resource management separately.
We’re changing the hierarchy of privileges within the Calendar privileges section of the Admin console. Before, to control calendar-related admin privileges, you had to use the "All Settings" checkbox, which controlled both calendar settings and resource management. Now, there's a separate "Settings" checkbox which allows you to assign privileges related to calendar settings separately from resource management.

Old hierarchy

New hierarchy

Who’s impactedAdmins only
Why you’d use itWith this change, admins can now create more specified custom roles to delegate tasks clearly and without worrying who the appropriate user is, for example:

An admin who can only manage buildings and resources
An admin who can only see room insights
An admin who can only modify calendar-related settings

Getting started

Admins: In the Admin console, go to Account > Admin roles and select the admin role for which you’d like to designate privileges. Click on Calendar.
End users: No action required.

Additional detailsExisting pre-built and custom roles will NOT be affected by this change. To learn more about the different admin privileges and their definitions, check out the Help Center.Rollout pace

Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on February 18, 2021

Availability

Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, and Education Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, and Nonprofits customers

Resources

Google Workspace Admin Help: Administrator privilege definitions

More notifications added to the alert center in Google Workspace

Thursday, February 18, 2021

What’s changing We’re adding new alerts to the alert center. Specifically, you can now see alerts for:

Reporting rules (formerly known as custom audit log alerts)
Eleven other new alerts related to changes to app settings and user accounts (formerly known as predefined admin alerts, see more details below)

Within the alert center, you can view important details about specific alerts, including a summary of the alert, date and time of the event, event description, and name of the related audit log. You can also click to search in audit logs to view more details about the event that triggered the alert.

Who’s impacted Admins only

Why it’s important You can use the alert center to view notifications about potential issues within your domain and take action (like end-user education or updates to existing policies or settings) to resolve the issues and protect your organization from security threats. You can also use the alert center API to export alerts into existing systems, such as a Security Information and Event Management system (SIEM) or ticketing platform.

We previously moved management of both the reporting rules (formerly known as custom alerts) and other alerts (formerly known as predefined admin alerts) to the security rules section of the Admin console. This provided a more consolidated view of rules and alerts and made it easier to manage alerts from a single location. By bringing notifications from those alerts to the alert center, we are creating a more complete and centralized location to view important notifications and potential security threats to your organization. We hope this provides a more comprehensive view of relevant alerts and helps you better understand and manage your organization.

Additional details Reporting rules now in the alert center Reporting rules are custom rules that allow you to create custom alerts based on your organization’s audit logs. Previously, you could only get email notifications when these rules were triggered. With this launch, you can see these events in the alert center.
For reporting rules that are already set up, admins will need to opt in manually to turn on alert center notifications for each rule. For newly set up reporting rules, the alert center notifications will be on by default, but admins can turn this off during or after rule setup.

New 'Send to alert center' option when creating or editing a reporting rule

Eleven alerts for user and app setting changes now in the alert center You can now choose to see notifications for the 11 alerts listed below. The alert center notifications for these will be off by default, and admins can choose to turn them on.

Calendar settings changed
Drive settings changed
Email settings changed
Mobile settings changed
New user added
Suspended user made active
User deleted
User granted Admin privilege
User suspended (Administrator email alert)
User’s Admin privilege revoked
User’s password changed

Examples of new alerts now available in the alert center

Getting started

Admins:

Reporting rules: For alerts that are already set up, notifications will be off by default. For alerts that are newly set up, notifications will be on by default. Admins can turn alert center notifications on or off while creating or editing a rule. Visit our Help Center to learn how to create and view reporting rules and set up alerts.
User and app settings changes: Alerts are off by default, but can be turned on for each alert individually. Visit our Help Center to learn or view and manage alerts in the alert center.

End users: No end user impact

Rollout pace

Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility) starting on February 18, 2021.

Availability

Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, and Education Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, and Nonprofits customers

Resources

Automatic group membership management with dynamic groups, now generally available

Wednesday, February 17, 2021

Quick launch summary Dynamic groups are now generally available. Dynamic groups work the same as other Google Groups, but with the added benefit that their memberships are automatically kept up to date with a membership query. Dynamic groups can be based on one or many user attributes, including addresses, locations, organizations, and relations.

By automating membership management you can increase security, reduce errors, and alleviate user frustration while minimizing the burden on admins.

See our beta announcement for more details and example use cases for dynamic groups. Note that at launch, you won’t be able to manage policies—like context-aware access policies—using dynamic groups. We are working on adding this functionality in the future, and will announce it on the Workspace Updates blog when it’s available.

This joins our other recent announcements for features that make it easier to manage groups within your organization. You can now also assign groups as security groups, set group membership expiration, and see indirect membership visibility and membership hierarchies via API. We hope these features make it easier to use groups to meet the access, security, and communication needs of your organization.

Getting started

Rollout pace

Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility) starting on February 17, 2021

Availability

Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, and Cloud Identity Premium customers
Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, and Education Fundamentals, or G Suite Basic, Business, and Nonprofits customers

Resources

Introducing Google Workspace for Education

Wednesday, February 17, 2021

What’s changing We’re excited to announce that G Suite for Education is now Google Workspace for Education. We hope that this change will provide you greater choice and flexibility in selecting the best tools to empower your institution. As part of this change, Google Workspace for Education will now be available in four distinct editions instead of just two:

In addition to these changes, we’re updating our storage policies. See more details below.
See our Education Blog post for more details on these new offerings. Use our website for a complete comparison of our Google Workspace for Education editions.

Who’s impacted Admins

Why it’s important More than 170 million students and educators worldwide rely on our suite of tools. With the launch of Google Workspace for Education, everything you need to teach, learn, connect, and share will remain all in one place, accessible from anywhere on any device. It will also include all the products you already use, like Google Classroom, Meet, Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and many more.
We hope the new offerings help us meet the diverse needs of institutions around the globe, from Pre-K to PhD.

Additional details Introducing a new storage policy Google has traditionally offered unlimited storage to qualifying schools and universities for free. In July 2022, we'll implement a new pooled storage model for all Google Workspace for Education editions.
We remain committed to providing all institutions around the world with a best-in-class experience, including ample free storage to support quality educational experiences. The new storage model will provide schools and universities with a baseline of 100TB of pooled cloud storage shared across all of their users—more than enough storage for over 100 million docs, 8 million presentations or 400,000 hours of video. To empower admins to adapt to this model and optimize their storage, we will provide tools to identify and manage how storage is used and allocated far in advance of the policy going into effect.
You don't need to do anything today, and this updated storage model will impact less than 1% of institutions. We will contact impacted institutions by email in the coming weeks to discuss a range of options for getting the storage they need. For details on how to prepare for this upcoming change or to learn more about how you’ll be able to increase the storage pool for your institution, please visit our Help Center.

Getting started

Admins:

End users: Users will automatically get the features in their new edition.

Rollout pace

Google Workspace Education Fundamentals and Education Plus are available today. Institutions will be able to purchase Education Standard and the Teaching and Learning Upgrade starting April 14, 2021.
The new storage policy will go into effect for existing customers on all Google Workspace for Education editions in July 2022.

Availability

Applicable to Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals (formerly known as G Suite for Education) and Google Workspace for Education Plus (formerly known as G Suite Enterprise for Education) customers
Not applicable to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, and Nonprofits customers

Resources

Mute all Google Meet participants at once

Wednesday, February 17, 2021

What’s changingMeeting hosts in Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals and Education Plus domains can now mute everyone all at once in Google Meet.

New host option to mute all participants

This feature will launch to additional Google Workspace editions in the coming months.
Who’s impactedEnd users
Why you’d use itThis change gives the host more control by helping them prevent or stop disruptions coming from unmuted users.
Additional detailsThe meeting host is the only user in a meeting who can use the “mute all” feature. Once all participants are muted, the meeting host cannot unmute them. However, users will be able to unmute themselves as needed.
The mute all feature will only be available for hosts who are joining from a desktop browser, but will be launching on other platforms in the coming months.
Getting started

Rollout pace

Availability

Available to Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals and Education Plus customers
Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, and Nonprofits customers

Resources

Google Help: Pin or mute Google Meet participants

Roadmap

This feature was listed as an upcoming release.

Limit Google Drive sharing to specific groups with target audiences, now generally available

Tuesday, February 16, 2021

What’s changing Admins can now define specific audiences with whom their users can link-share Google Drive files. This can help keep your organizational data secure, and make it simpler for users to share files with the right colleagues.
The feature was previously available in beta. Based on your feedback from the beta, we’ve made two important changes:

We’ve increased the maximum number of target audiences you can recommend from three to five.
During the beta, only admin-created groups could be added to target audiences. Now, admins can add any group as a target audience, including groups belonging to different organizations.

Read more below, or visit our Help Center to learn more about best practices for deploying target audiences.

Who’s impacted Admins and end users

Why you’d use it Previously, admins could choose to allow users to link-share files to either their entire domain or anyone with the link. Target audiences allow admins to define and recommend more granular link-sharing options for users. This can help to:

Improve your organization’s security posture by making it harder for information to be shared more broadly than is appropriate.
Guide users to share with more specific and appropriate audiences.
Save users time by reducing the need to manage sharing requests from multiple individuals.
Make it easier for your users to collaborate with their colleagues simply, efficiently, and securely.

Getting started

Admins can create a target audience in the Admin console
Rollout pace

Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (Up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on February 16, 2021

Availability

Available to Google Workspace Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus, as well as G Suite Business and Enterprise for Education customers
Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Enterprise Essentials, as well as G Suite Basic, Education, and Nonprofits customers

Resources

Roadmap

This feature was listed as an upcoming release.

Updates

Sign in to RSVP via hyperlinks in Google Calendar email invitations

Add files owned by suspended accounts to shared drives

New Google Vault interface will become the only experience starting on May 24, 2021

Enhanced admin controls for Gmail IMAP

Join Google Meet calls from third-party video conferencing systems more easily

New Assured Controls help support your information governance goals

Expanding data regions coverage to Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides user indices

Access to Google Workspace core services from Google Assistant

Adding Google Chat, Google Calendar, and Jamboard to Google Workspace Essentials

Google Workspace Updates Weekly Recap - February 26, 2021

Let Google Calendar automatically book a replacement room for your events

Reminder: Ending support for IE11 for all Google Workspace apps on March 15

Easily locate the source file for embedded Drive video and audio files in Google Slides

End a Google Meet video call for everyone at once

More options for sharing your availability in Google Calendar

Improvements for locating new comments and important conversations in Google Docs

Google Workspace Updates Weekly Recap - February 19, 2021

New option to download third-party apps and domain wide delegation to CSV

Changes to information visibility in Meet quality tool, Meet audit log, and Reports API

New Calendar admin privilege hierarchy in the Admin console

More notifications added to the alert center in Google Workspace

Automatic group membership management with dynamic groups, now generally available

Introducing Google Workspace for Education

Mute all Google Meet participants at once

Limit Google Drive sharing to specific groups with target audiences, now generally available

Filter by product

Filter by date

Subscribe by email

Subscribe by feed

Localized Google Workspace Updates

Useful Links

Join the official community for Google Workspace administrators

Learn about more Google Workspace launches

View active Google Workspace Beta Programs